Healthcare system improvements are continually being developed and sought after by providers and consumers alike. As health systems face economic pressures to increase their bottom line, there are constant efforts to develop measures and management systems that may increase efficiency in various aspects of health care management.
One such aspect relates to the management of healthcare related enterprise applications. In this regard, hospitals often deploy a number of applications for managing data corresponding to various different healthcare related issues. For example, different applications may be employed for various aspects of claims management, personnel management, equipment management, patient management and numerous other activities. In some cases, different vendors and different security protocols may be associated with one or more of the different applications. Thus, control over the consistency, manageability and security associated with installing, running and supporting hospital and healthcare related enterprise applications may become costly and complex.
Based on the issues discussed above, the total cost of ownership of information technology (IT) equipment and applications may be an important issue for hospitals and healthcare systems. However, the issues may extend beyond cost and complexity in some cases because software in many traditional models is deployed in a distributed fashion where applications from one vendor may operate as part of a large data center at a hospital or healthcare system site. Often, over the counter servers and storage hardware may be pieced together to share network resources with the rest of the hospital or healthcare system's enterprise. Thus, for example, network, hardware and storage resources may be shared between different software vendors and various compatibility and security problems may be created due to variances in the accepted standards among vendors. In some cases, shared ownership over portions of a software stack may further complicate enterprise management with respect to software and IT equipment.
Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide an improved system via which at least some of the issues discussed above may be addressed.